Nova Biochem

See our first event at the bottom of this email

The Market

• The production of petrochemicals is a $425bn industry.

• It is however, completely dependent on crude oil which makes means it is heavily polluting and unsustainable

• Meanwhile, the paper industry burns 100 megatons of pulping residue (lignin) every year

• Lignin is the only renewable source of bio-aromatic compounds

Nova Biochem converts raw-form lignin into high-value, sustainable bio-aromatic chemicals, solving two key problems:

• The world’s largest chemical companies are looking to transition chemical production away from crude oil, but there are currently no viable alternatives.

• Petrochemical production emits a huge amount of CO2, as does the paper industry when it burns lignin in its process.

One Liner

• Nova Biochem is developing a new process that transforms side stream from the pulping industry into sustainable, biobased drop-in chemicals and building blocks for adhesives, coatings, plastics, tyre plasticisers and more.

Thanks to our VC partners, we have another exclusive Revolut deal for you!

Register your interest below to receive more information about the specific terms of the deal and stay tuned for the launch of quick pitch deal

Quickfire

• Headquarters: London

• Employee count: 2

• Investors: Backed by TSP Ventures as well as two CVCs (Suzano Ventures and Solvay Ventures)

• Funding amount: £1m

• Business model: B2B

• Traction metrics: 

  • Large prototype commissioned and operational at Nottingham University with overwhelming positive results.

  • Secured letters of support from leading paper and forestry products companies (UPM & Stora Enso).

  • Secured a letter of support from one of the leading speciality chemicals companies, which will be a key partner in product testing and pricing validation.

Due Diligence

Competition

The main competition are the petrochemical incumbents Nova is looking to disrupt. There is one company (LignoBoost) that is also using pulp waste valorisation, but with less success than Nova’s results.

Founders

Founder & CEO, Alex Novitskiy: PhD in chemistry 10+ years in finance and management

Lead Process Engineer, Emre Demirkaya: PhD in chemical engineering 

Chief Designer, Sergey Soshin: PhD in engineering, creator of 20+ inventions

Quick Pitch’s First Event!

• We’re partnering with The Graduate Guide and Grads Building Companies alongside Peter Wood to host our first investor-founder dinner in March 🤝

• We’re bringing together the most promising young founders for an exclusive dinner—designed to connect them with early stage investors who can help them scale. With a community of 20,000 ambitious young founders building the next generation of UK startups, they’ve already got the recognition from the likes of Google and other leading brands.

• Let us know here if you’d like to come, partner with us for the event, or have a space we can use.

Let the people decide

Last feature’s results

• The people have spoken: The quick pitch readers are bullish on Roiward! Vote in the poll above to see how your decision stacks up against thousands of founders, investors and operators.

• Here’s what you guys had to say: “A no brainer to maximise the share of value for so many players”